


Hunting Ground

by Aoida_blue



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Jason makes amazing life decisions, M/M, Robin!Jay, Talon!Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:51:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2600954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoida_blue/pseuds/Aoida_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason had chased him. </p>
<p>Which had been stupid.</p>
<p>A Robin shouldn't have chased a Talon and Jason got that now. He really, truly did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting Ground

All those  _other_  stupid sidekicks said he was too slow to learn, to eager to leap into action. But Jason did learn. He  _did_ .  But the lesson wouldn’t stick if he ended up just as dead as this Talon’s latest round of corpses.

  
But you know, that outcome was looking pretty damn likely right then.

  
Jason breathed hard, clutching his side, slotted back in the shadows of an apartment with an open widow. It wasn’t empty, not like Jason had thought it was when he’d entered it hoping for some form of reprieve, bleeding and bruised.

It wasn’t empty at all.

  
“Little birdy.” The Talon smirked, moonlight slashing across those pearly whites, “Don’t you know the sun has set?”

  
Why did villains always go for bad poetry? Jason held his hand tight on his ribs, pressing hard against the gash, the blood sticky against his palm. He smirked back as hard as he could.

  
“So what? You ‘fraid of the dark?” He asked back, breath coming hard as he slid back a small step, just enough so he could rest a little on the counter.

  
He didn’t know  _whose_  counter. Hell Jason didn’t even know what neighbourhood he was in. He’d lost track when he realised just how screwed he really was and tried to run.

  
Buildings had blurred, street signs became ample launching pads, and the whirr of traffic buzzing around Jason’s ears. He’d become a mess of reactions, and seeing the empty apartment with the windows open had been as good as the Batcave to Jason’s pounding heart, and he’d doubled back and hid in here as soon as he thought he’d lost him.

  
Thought he’d lost the Talon.

  
An  _incorrect_  thought.

  
The Talon had been fast, perhaps even faster than Batman and had hunted Jason down.

  
And that thought was downright terrifying. Because if the Talon was faster than Bruce then- then-

  
The Talon stalked forward, head tilting, foot steps eating up the scant distance between them, armour glinting more gold the closer he came. His hands were out by his sides, blades in either hand rising like wings, his shadow fell over Jason, and all Jason could see was the Talon, haloed in the silver moonlight.

  
Jason didn’t move, he knew he couldn’t, he couldn’t run any more, he was only getting slower. There was no running from this. Instead Jason firmed his trembling chin and stared back hard at his reflection in the yellow glazed goggles, straightened himself as much as he could.

  
The Talon’s smile seemed to stretch.

  
“Am _I_ afraid of the Dark?” The Talon asked, softly, mockingly.

  
Jason pulled his chin higher up.

  
“It’s what I said.” Jason spat out.

  
The Talon’s blades twirled in his hands, dagger ends suddenly pointing down at Jason. Jason’s heart skipped.

  
“An  _owl_  doesn’t fear the dark. an owl hunts in the dark.” The Talon told him, tone almost warm, tender like a teacher to his pupil, “Little  _Robins_  get hunted in the dark.”

  
He was close, close enough Jason knew it would take only a breath for one of those many glittering daggers Jason had glimpsed at to be wedged between his ribs, splitting his heart.

  
Jason’s heart beat doubled as if making up for all that time it was about to lose.

  
“You done with all the bird metaphors?” Jason drawled, “Cause really I’m half expecting to hear that ‘birds of a feather-“

  
The Talon moved, blades cutting through the stale air and Jason’s eyes shut at the last moment, not wanting to see-

  
But instead they rang, the knives reverberating beside his ears. Jason’s eyes flinched open to see a blade, not an inch from his eye, embedded deep into the counter.

  
He was alive. He was still-

  
Jason turned back and all he could see was his own small face in the Talon’s gold goggles.

  
Jason sucked a sharp breath in, a breath that seemed to suck the Talon in, leaning in close, close enough Jason had to shrink back, arch slightly over the counter just not to touch him.

  
“I could make a chick reference.” The Talon told him, voice rich with humour slowly and very deliberately pressing their bodies together, “But you’ve grown since the last time I saw you.”

  
Last time he saw-

  
What.

  
Ah the first Robin. The baby of a kid who’d-

  
“I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”  Jason bit back, teeth set hard in a grimace as the position pulled against his cut.

  
The Talon’s smile sharpened.

  
“Do I,  _Jason_?”

  
Jason blood froze.

  
Shit.

  
He had  _his_  name. That meant the court knew who Batman was, knew who-

  
The Talon ducked forward suddenly, lips hard on Jason, teeth setting into his bottom lip and latching down hard. It wasn’t a kiss, it couldn’t be, not with the Talon’s teeth nipping in, and the smell of a cold polluted night flooding Jason’s nose and tongue. Jason’s gut lurched and the Talon pressed a quicksilver grin to Jason’s mouth his teeth worrying at his lip nearly tenderly-

  
And in a breath he was gone again, pulled clear off him, leaving iron in Jason’s mouth.

  
Jason jerked, surprise and pain, the distant command in his head ringing to do something, to do  _anything_ , sounding a lot like Batman demanding he move faster-

  
But the Talon was already half a room away, knives he’d plucked from the counter disappearing into the folds of his armour.

  
The Talon licked his lips, the faint smear of Jason’s blood disappearing under a pink tongue and sunk back into the shadows.

  
“Happy 17th Jason.” The Talon said words low and lilting like a laugh as a car drove past, headlights flooding the apartment and light burning against Jason’s eyes as he blinked hard to see again.

  
“And tell your  _boss_  we are coming for him.”

  
Jason flinched forward in his blindness, as if to follow, as if to chase, as if…

  
But when the light had gone, so was the Talon.

  
The Talon had just… disappeared. Open windows and open doors and a hundred and one possible exit points and Jason didn’t even know where to start. Didn’t know if he could even follow, with his ankle swelling, the cut bleeding from his waist-

  
A warm drop of blood dropped from Jason’s chin, splashing against Jason’s arm and Jason flinched, hand coming up to press at his bleeding lip.

_  
Shit_.

  
No the Talon wasn’t the issue now. The Court knew who he was, they would know-

  
He had to get to Batman  _now_.


End file.
